So I will say up front that this episode didn't really do it for me. I think that is probably because it came on the heels of four of the most exciting hours Lost has had so far combined with the fact that Kate is my least favorite character. With that said, it was a new episode, so lets dive in.
Alternate Timeline
Kate hijacks the cab, steals Claire's purse, and kicks her out of the cab. After getting her cuffs removed she sees the picture of a preggers Claire and some baby stuff. She has a change of heart and somehow tracks Claire down at a bus stop. She offers to drive Claire to the house of the couple who is going to adopt her baby. At the house, the woman's husband left her, her life is falling apart, and she can't take Claire's baby anymore. Kate yells at the woman and Claire starts having contractions. Is Kate going to deliver Claire's baby again? Kate brings Claire to the hospital where we find that her doctor is Ethan Goodspeed.
Here is where I could use some help on the timeline. In "The Incident," Dr. Chang evacuates all women and children from the island. I presume this would include Amy and Ethan. But later he is seen living with The Others. Did he leave the island and come back? Or did he never leave in the first place? If he never left in the first place, this would point to the fact that the bomb is not the immediate cause of the island sinking, because Ethan would have been on the island, and we see him alive in 2004 AT. If he left the island, the bomb may still be the cause as Ethan would have been off the island by then. We will have to see if any of our other characters from 1977 who were on island when the bomb went off show up in the 2004 AT (Ben, Richard, Ellie, Widmore).
Anyway, Ethan offers Claire drugs to stop the baby from coming, but he doesn't want to stick her with needles unless he needs to (contrast with the multiple attempts to inject Claire on the island). The baby's heartbeat goes flat and Claire wants to know what's wrong with Aaron?! It was like she already knew the name. Fate. She covers for Kate when some officers come asking and then gives Kate her credit card to help her our. Kate thinks Claire should keep the baby (and so does Richard Malkin...Claire, take a hint).
Original Timeline
Lennon hurries to tell Dogen that Sayid is alive. They seem concerned and want to speak with him alone. Jack doesn't like this idea, because Jack is hell bent on ruining everyone's lives. Rob McElhenney (Aldo) is back and apparently still alive. Sawyer starts shooting and wants to leave. Dogen says he really must stay. Sawyer leaves anyway. Kate, seeing an opportunity to continue her role as the island whore, says that she can track Sawyer and bring him back because she can be very persuasive when she has to be (translation: I will have sex with him). Jin goes with Kate.
Sayid is strapped down in Dogen's lab area and subjected to a series of "tests." The first involves putting ash on him, the second is electrocuting him, and the third is burning him with a hot poker. He reacts exactly the way I would react if I were being tortured but apparently he failed the test. When Jack finds out that Sayid was tortured he storms off to see Dogen and Lennon. They explain that Sayid is "infected" and he must take a pill with medicine. Sayid can't be forced to take the pill, he must take it willingly (free will working here) so Jack must ask him to as his friend. Jack takes the pill to Sayid and Sayid says that he trusts Jack and will take the pill if Jack says to. While the entire audience realizes that there is something wrong with Sayid because "dead is dead" Jack can't seem to get out of his own way and decides not to give Sayid the pill.
Jack goes back to see Dogen and they have some discussion about why he uses a translator when he can speak English. Dogen explains that it keeps a barrier between the leader and those he is in charge of so that they will accept difficult decisions that he has to make even if they don't like them. Sounds a lot like how Jacob ran things. Dogen was "brought" to the island just like everybody else and Jack really should "know what he means." Jack demands to know what is in the pill but Dogen insists that he has to trust him. Jack, again makes the wrong choice (I'm not sure the last time Jack made the correct choice...perhaps free will is wasted on Jack) and swallows the pill which turns out to be poison. Luckily Dogen is a master of kung fu and is able to get Jack to spit it up. He explains to Jack that there is a darkness in Sayid and if it spreads to his heart he will lose everything that they previously knew of him. Jack wants to know how they know this and it is because the same thing happened to his sister (Claire).
Out on the search party we run into a trip wire that Kate assumes must be put there by Rousseau. But Rousseau has been dead for years, this must be a trap put here by...shut up Justin! Who is this mysterious person planting traps in the jungle? Aldo reminds Kate that she tricked him with the old Star Wars switcheroo and then knocked him out with the butt of a rifle. Kate proceeds to repeat this with the butt of her pistol. The trap springs and knocks Justin out. Kate and Jin separate and Kate reveals that she isn't bringing Sawyer back but just wants to find him and be with him. Juliet hasn't been dead for a day and Kate smells blood in the water. Kate finds Sawyer who is back at his house in Dharmaville crying. They share a moment on the dock about Juliet and how Sawyer was going to ask her to marry him. He throws the ring in the water. Some people are just meant to be alone. Single tear.
Back in the Jungle, Aldo and Justin meet up with Jin and Aldo wants to kill Jin. Jin runs away and is caught in a bear trap (which should probably have cut his foot off). Just as Aldo is going to shoot Jin, crazy infected Claire comes to the rescue to shoot Aldo and Justin. What did Justin ever do? He didn't want to shoot Jin, that was all on Aldo. Poor guy. Jin says, "Claire?" and we get a look at what Claire looks like after three years in the jungle. She seems to pause for a moment in recognition and we cut to black.
Thoughts
All in all I didn't think it was a really exciting episode. I don't mind the character driven episodes but I just couldn't really get into it. Maybe I am too biased against Kate. We got nothing from the Flocke/Richard group, which was a little disappointing but I think the previews for next week, "The Substitute," made it look like we will get some more answers on that. The infection that Sayid has, I assume, is the same one that infected Robert, Lacombe, and Brennan (Rousseau's science team). They got it after entering the Temple so maybe the smoke monster has something to do with it. Sayid's body was "claimed" according to Lennon. I'll be interested to see how the rest of the Losties take the news. Hurley clearly will not be rational about it and will side with Sayid. I didn't get too much out of the flash sideways but maybe I wasn't watching very closely. I'll be interested to hear from others and maybe it will jog some other thoughts I have.
UPDATE: Apparently Damon Lindelof does not like that I wasn't a big fan of last night's episode. I promise to try and not piss him off in the future. I don't think I would fall into the category of people calling this episode "filler," but I think they have raised people's expectations perhaps unnecessarily high. I mean there is a whole season left to tell the story and ABC keeps promoting it as the final episodes of the series where all the answers are coming. I think after LA X people were ready for some more answers and the episode gave us fairly little on that front. Season one was a lot of backstory and character driven. I loved season 1. But I watched it in like 2 days. It's hard, I think, waiting a week between episodes, especially when people are so excited for answers. Like I said, I didn't hate the episode, it just didn't do it for me.
I completely agree. I didn't necessarily hate the episode but I was disappointed in more than a couple ways. Like you said, it's not that character development isn't important but every moment that goes by without some grand gesture toward "the answer" I get more and more nervous that the show's either not going to get there or that it'll come out in such a fantastic flurry at the very end that it'll lose it's impact. I have been eagerly awaiting Claire's return for some time now but her island self appearing in the last moments was so three seasons ago that I was more agitated than amped at the end of "What Kate Does."
ReplyDeleteI thought it was an alright episode that might even become decent after a rewatch. I agree that it suffered having followed the past 4 episodes, and, probably even more so, from ridiculous Season 6 episodes. It just wouldn't be possible or advisable to maintain a breakneck pace over all 17 episodes this season. Each season, like in a novel, really tells its own chapter. Slower set-up episodes like this are a necessary evil of that formula (look at 5.03 "Jughead" last year which drew some tough criticism at the time, but really turned out to be the key to the whole season). Anyhow, I get frustrated having to wait a whole week too, but the slowburn presentation of LOST is what makes its ultimate payoffs so entertaining.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I do actually think we got a pretty significant "answer" this week about an original mystery from Season 1: the sickness. I'm writing a post on this topic which I'll hopefully have up soon, so I'll save my thoughts until then. Anyhow, the sickness and "claiming" characters could definitely provide the means of fueling an impending battle between Jacob and the Others and MIB and the Claimed. We'll see...
I think Ethan's timeline works out fine. He was born a few days before the Incident, so I'm assuming he and his mother Amy Goodspeed would have been evacuated with the rest of Dharma on the sub (suspending disbelief concerning newborns on sub-rides). In the Alternate universe, the Island is destroyed and those who were evacuated cannot return. Ethan grows up in the real world and eventually becomes a doctor in L.A., where he one day helps Claire and Aaron (like he was arguably always fated to do). In the Original universe, the Incident occurs and the Island is not destroyed. Once Dharma secures the Swan site, the sub returns to the Island. I presume some Dharma members call it quits and stay in the real world (e.g. Miles and his mother), but others likely return. Amy and Ethan most likely return given the fact that Horace would have remained on the Island (and unlike Dr. Chang and Miles' mom, the Goodspeeds did not fight before the evacuation).
Alot of people are upset with how strange Claire and Kate's decisions in the Alternate universe appeared this episode (e.g. why would Kate risk being caught to help Claire?, why would Claire accept a ride from the woman who stole her purse?). I agree that these actions seem strange, but I think they are supposed to, until we take into account that these Alternate-characters appear to have some knowledge/sense from the Original universe. Much like Claire just knew the baby should be named Aaron, both Claire and Kate were simply drawn (likely for unexplainable reasons) towards each other. Now, whether this turns out to be full-blown knowledge/memories that emerges over time or the more subtle sense of intuition I discussed in my post last week, we will see. But I think it's important to notice its presence and its effect in helping fate to reach its ends (intertwining the lives of Kate and Claire for example).
ReplyDeleteJack's decision to not give Sayid the poison pill was only "wrong" based on whether you side with Jacob and the Others or with MIB/Fake Locke. I think it was pretty clear that the pill was going to kill Sayid, and not simply "cure" him of the infection. Therefore, if you feel fine parting with Sayid because you think his being "claimed" means he has/will become evil, then I agree Jack should have given him the poison. But, if good and evil remain in doubt at this point (and although I've been drawn to Jacob, I'm not sold that his followers, the Others, have ever been "good"...so maybe the jury's still out on this debate?), then perhaps it would have been premature to kill Sayid. Finally, why didn't the Others just kill Sayid? I'm guessing because he is technically already dead and so the poison, willingly taken, was the only means of killing him (more on this and Claire's case in my full post soon).
Finally, best line:
Angry, sarcastic Sawyer on Sayid coming back to life: "He's an Iraqi torturer who shoots kids; he definitely deserves another go-around!"
That Sawyer line made my Mom laugh out loud (she's only seen about 2 hours combined of Lost).
ReplyDeleteI'll be interested to see what your thoughts on the sickness are. I'm with you as far as not being completely sold that Jacob is good and MIB is evil. But I'm equally unsure of how this sickness plays into that struggle. Robert was ready to kill a pregnant Rousseau, the mother of his child, as a result of the sickness. It's hard for me to see how this is really a ploy by the good guys. But your right, until we get more information its hard to form an accurate opinion.
As for the episode itself, I've been thinking about it more and I think the biggest reason that people didn't really like it is because we don't have a good idea of what the relation between the two timelines is. In seasons one through three we knew that we were seeing flashbacks which filled in information about the characters that we were watching in the present. In season 4 they were flash forwards of events that would happen to characters we were watching in the present. Season 5 was basically all in the present (relatively speaking, obviously, with a few flashbacks between 2007 and 2005 rescue) and again they were all characters we knew so it added to our understanding.
With season 6 we don't know what we are seeing. We assume that it is a flash to an alternate universe splitting off from when the bomb detonated, but we don't actually know this. It's possible there is some other explanation for what we are seeing. And we still don't know how it connects to the characters in the "present". We don't know what we're seeing so its harder to connect it to the characters that we already have watched over 5 seasons. Sure its cool to see how they do things differently or the same, but right now, they are different characters and its just hard to gauge the episode right now without knowing the bigger picture. I have a feeling that after the finale the episode will make a lot more sense and be a lot more enjoyable watching it with knowledge of the broader picture.
I still thought some of the Kate/Sawyer stuff was forced. I thought Josh Holloway was really good in this episode and the emotion felt real because his relationship with Juliet was real. It was hard to get the same emotion out of Kate. She has never had a real relationship. She keeps running anytime someone starts to get close. The other problem that someone pointed out (I think over on Slate*) is that this really isn't a love triangle. For a triangle there has to be a connection with all those involved. Jack and Sawyer hate each other and always have. Kate happens to like both of them, but there isn't anything really connecting Jack and Sawyer. So while you may be a Jack person or a Sawyer person, its hard to get excited about one of them ending up with Kate. Maybe I'm off base here. But I compare it to Dawson's Creek (don't laugh). Pacey and Dawson were best friends who both loved the same girl. Joey was a (fairly) likeable character who genuinely loved both of them. By the end of the show there was a real feeling that you wanted everyone to end up happy. We cared about who Joey picked. I don't feel that with Kate. I don't care who she ends up with because I think they'll be miserable in the end. Maybe this is my Kate bias coming out, but as Sawyer said, "Some people are just meant to be alone."
ReplyDelete* - Slate's TV Club is doing a running conversation over the final season of Lost. They have done this previously with The Wire and The Sopranos. Unfortunately they didn't exactly choose the best group of people to do this. Chadwick Matlin is probably the only one of the group who actually watched every episode and understand the mythology. Jack Shafer represents everything wrong with mainstream tv viewers and makes no bones that he absolutely hates Lost and has no interest in watching the final season because he thinks the writers are too "gimmicky". Clearly he just doesn't like science fiction. Anyway, its really not worth reading, but I thought I'd let you all know of another site discussing Lost.
One quick other thing I forgot to mention that I thought was cool. Sawyer went to New Otherton to pull up the floorboards in the house that he and Juliet lived in to find the engagement ring he was going to give her. For Sawyer it had only been a day or two since he was last in the house but in reality the ring had been under the floorboard for 30 years. Wouldn't it be great if that was the same house that Juliet lived in when she comes to the island and the ring that Sawyer was going to give her 30 years earlier had been under the floorboard the whole time?
ReplyDeleteActually great point, the fact that Sawyer had just been in the 70s slipped my mind. I thought it was kind of funny that he would have hidden it under the floorboard and that they were showing him dig it up. Of course, had he not hidden it under there, it would have obviously been found and taken during that 30 year interval.
ReplyDeleteA final word on "What Kate Does". When discussing things that were the same and different in the ATL I forgot to mention the Comic-Con video that showed this year. It was staged as an episode of America's Most Wanted about Kate. In the video she was wanted for the murder of her father's apprentice rather than her father. We didn't get any confirmation of this in "What Kate Does" but since this was shown by Damon and Carlton at Comic-Con giving us a taste of the "Alternate Timeline," I'm going to consider it canon.
ReplyDeleteI might hesitate to consider it canon, since last year they showed a video of Dr. Chang trying to contact the future in an attempt to save the Dharma Initiative from the Purge. It sounded like it was Faraday filming Chang in the video. Obviously, based on the events we saw in Season 5, that scene never actually took place, and so last year's Comic-Con video was likely just a teaser to help hint at the presence of timetravel in Season 5.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, I think this year's video was meant to hint at the possibility of the Alternate Universe and the fact that certain events might have turned out differently in the lives of our characters (chaos theory ripples). That doesn't necessarily mean that alt-Kate actually ended up killing someone other than her father...and ultimately, I'm guessing the specifics of her alt-crime probably won't end up matter too much to the Alt-storyline anyhow.